A U.S. Surgeon General report released today confirms what many anti-smoking advocates have believed for years – even brief exposure to secondhand smoke or the occasional light up causes instant damage to the body.

The scientific study, “How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease” said tobacco smoke contains a “deadly mixture” of more than 7,000 toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that damage DNA with every exposure.

“The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale causing damage immediately,” said U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin, who hosted a press conference broadcast live on the Internet.

“I think people think that they can smoke for a while and just quit and then then the damage will go away because your body has an uncanny ability to heal itself” said Mishelle Bakewell, Metro Health's representative to West Michigan's Tobacco Free Partners. “What people don't realize is you never know what that one cigarette will do to you.”

The findings also show it's not just heavy smokers who get smoking-related diseases, or have heart or asthma attacks triggered by cigarette smoke.

"Smoking is radioactive," said Dr. Tom Peterson, chair of Tobacco Free Partners and executive director of safety, quality and community health for Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.

"Smoking causes more disease and death than anything else that exists," he said.

“Tobacco's so addictive,” Metro's Bakewell said. “The product is made so that people become addicted the first time you smoke a cigarette.”

Laura Van Heest, cessation and education coordinator for Tobacco Free Partners and a registered respiratory therapist at Saint Mary's Health, said the science outlined in the report makes it hard for smokers to refute.

"Everybody is talking about their right to smoke. They gave up their rights as soon as they became addicted," Van Heest said. "They're not longer in control, the tobacco companies are."

Bakewell said anti-smoking advocate realize it is not easy to quit, and that's why there are resources like Tobacco Free Partners and free smoking cessation classes at Metro Health and other area hospitals.

“If someone wants to quit we have the support for them,” Bakewell said.

According to the Surgeon General, smoking causes 85 percent of lung cancers and one in three cancer deaths in the U.S. is tobacco-related.